34 THE STATE IN RELATION TO LABOUR. [CHAP.
regard to labour has almost always been class-legislation. It is the effort of some dominant body to keep down a lower class, which had begun to show inconvenient aspirations. Such is clearly the nature of the celebrated Statute of Labourers, which was simply a futile attempt to prevent labour from getting its proper price. Bren-tano is doubtless right in saying that all statutes of labourers in the Middle Ages were framed with regard to the powers and wants of the landed proprietors, the feudal lords. The great Statute of Apprentices (5 Eliz. cap. 4), of which I shall have much to say, had a different origin. According to the opinion of historians, it represented the triumph of the craft-gilds—that is, the mediaeval trade-unions. If it was this, it was also more than this. Regarded as a piece of legislative handiwork, it certainly left nothing to be desired in thoroughness and comprehensiveness; but it was nevertheless a monstrous law. From beginning to end it aimed at industrial slavery. The Justices of the Peace could not only fix all rates of wages, but if they chose to exert their powers, could become the industrial despots of their district.
It has often been weakly remarked that probably this statute, however indefensible it may seem at the present day, was well suited to the then existing state of society. Such remarks imply ignorance of the contents of the statute. The general theory of the Act is that every servant or artificer shall be compelled to work in the trade to which he was brought up. Any workman departing from his city, town, or parish, without a testimonial from his previous employer or some officer, was to be imprisoned until he